


Win Some, Lose Some

by Artemystic



Category: Original Work
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Ashes, Dead People, Dumbass Names™, Fire, Gen, Magic, Mild Gore, Religious Fanaticism, Unreliable Narrator, and then more dead people, crazy laughter, living people, not entirely sane, umm... does this count as, written with word prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 21:04:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemystic/pseuds/Artemystic
Summary: Char just wants to bring people to the light! Nothing wrong with that...





	Win Some, Lose Some

**Author's Note:**

> This one was a lot of fun. <strike>Letting out the inner crazy always is.</strike> XD
> 
> My prompt words were:  
\- Echt  
\- Disintegrate  
\- Empyrean
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

Char Ming threw his head back and laughed, eyes open and wild. “Aaaaahahahahaha! Fear me! Bow to me! I will baptize you in the flames of righteousness, for I am an Echt Templar!”

“Why are you doing this?” a woman screamed as her house burned to the ground.

“Idiot!” Char yelled, throwing his machete. It stuck in the woman’s head and she fell over, dead. “It is to baptize you in the flames of righteousness! You have been found unworthy!” His hand made a “come hither” motion, and the machete pulled itself out of the dead woman’s head with a nasty squelching noise.

Just then, a man ran around the corner of the house, holding a singed dog. “Darling!” he shrieked, dropping the dog and running over to the woman. He looked up at Char, his face twisted and eyes burning. “Why are you doing this to us?”

Char dropped his head into his open hand with an exaggerated sigh. “Did I not just say…?” he asked the bystanders, looking at them from the corner of one eye.

Wide-eyed and speechless, the villagers nodded.

“That’s what I thought.” Char straightened. “Unworthy!” he shouted, throwing his machete once again. It flew wide, hitting the burning house. “Oh, hoho! You want to play games?” he said, walking forward a few steps.

The man crying over his dead wife looked up. “I will kill you!” he screamed, face twisting in rage. “I will kill you here, and I will hunt down your sons and their sons and kill them all!”

“Hah! Then the joke is on you, fool! I have no sons!” Char stretched out a hand, and his machete flew obediently back to him. However, his few steps forward had positioned him in such a way that the weapon forced itself through the distraught man’s body. There was a horrific crunching and grinding as Char wiggled his fingers impatiently. The kneeling man’s rib cage bulged dramatically, then exploded outward, showering Char and the watching villagers with bits of shattered bone and gore. Five women fainted without a sound.

Char grinned, his teeth a garish white through the red streaking his face, as the machete’s hilt landed neatly in his grasp with a bloody slap. He inhaled deeply, loving the smell of subjugation in the morning. He wished it was morning so it smelled better.

“What’s a Echt Templar?” someone said.

Char spun around. A stout woman had her hand over the mouth of a small boy. He continued to grin. “Ah, a smart one! And here I thought you were all a bunch of dimwitted, backwater idiots. I’m glad you asked!” He began pacing along the length of the group of villagers. Behind him, the support structure of one of the burning buildings disintegrated, sending the building collapsing in on itself with much crackling and spitting.

“An Echt Templar is one of the highest ranks of the Order of the Empyreal Heaven! It is a noble and prestigious thing, to be named one of the True Templars! Only the most loyal and devout, the most fervent and pious, are chosen to join the Echt Templars. Our one mission: to seek out the nonbelievers and share with them the incandescent truth, to light within their hearts a searing flame of the blazing knowledge of the Empyrean Heaven!”

The boy struggled away from his darling mama. She grabbed after him, managing to catch him up in her arms, but not before he got another question out.

“What’s the Empyran Heaven?”

“The Empyrean Heaven?” Char corrected, an indulgent smile on his face. “The Empyrean Heaven is the highest of all the heavens, second to none, where the righteous shall live in radiant splendor, ruling over all the unworthy! With our actions, we, the Echt Templars, will raze the world in preparation for the coming of Heaven’s glory!”

“But doesn’t killing people make you a bad man?” asked a little girl peering out from behind the stout woman’s skirts.

“Yes, it—No, no, no. I  _ kill  _ the bad men! Do you see? I am a hero!” Char struck his most heroic pose, reveling in the feel of the drying blood stretching and cracking across his face as he grinned.

“Eep!” The girl hid behind her mama’s skirts.

“And so I come to you with a most generous offer!” Char said, raising his machete inspiringly. Or menacingly, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. The villagers shrank back. Must have been menacing. He shrugged. Win some, lose some.

“The Empyrean Order is not without mercy! Forsake your heathen ways. Join me. Swell the ranks of Heaven! Leave this foul life behind and follow me to the grand city of Incendia. Embrace our teachings and spread the word. Spread the truth!  _ Echt Templars forever!” _

In his exuberance, Char let the Power of Truth overtake him, spreading its blaze wide to scorch the hearts of those around him, that they might be reborn like a phoenix from the ashes.

He let the power wash over and around him, burning through him and reigniting his zeal. He reveled in the warmth, like coming home, so gentle, so relaxing. At last, Char pulled himself together and looked up.

The land around him in a ten mile radius was scorched. Blackened, burnt, nothing left but ash that floated gently down like snow. He stared around himself for a moment.

“Well, damn,” he said. He looked down, toeing at the ashes with a sooty boot. Then he looked up and grinned. The blood was all burned away and his face felt fresh and new again. He sheathed his machete and turned East, kicking up ash in his wake.

“Win some, lose some,” he said aloud with a shrug. He stretched his arms above his head, feeling his back pop. “Ah, it feels so good to be out! I don’t know why they kept me in that tiny room for so long.”

He spun around and laughed. “This is gonna be so much fun!”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> And tell me what you thought!!


End file.
